How to print stdout before writing stdin using subprocess module in Python?

[Sarbjit singh]

I am writing a script in which in the external system command may sometimesrequire user input. I am not able to handle that properly. I have tried using os.popen4 and subprocess module but could not achieve the desired behavior.

Below mentioned example would show this problem using "cp" command. ("cp" command is used to show this problem, i am calling some different exe which may similarly prompt for user response in some scenarios). In this example there are two files present on disk and when user tries to copy file1 to file2, an conformer message comes up.

proc = subprocess.Popen("cp -i a.txt b.txt", shell=True, stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT,) stdout_val, stderr_val = proc.communicate() print stdout_val b.txt?

proc.communicate("y")

Now in this example if i read only stdout/stderr and prints it, later on ifi try to write "y" or "n" based on user's input, i got an error that channel is closed. Can some one please help me on achieving this behavior in python such that i can print stdout first, then should take user input and write stdin later on.

 

[Peter Otten]

I am writing a script in which in the external system command may
sometimes require user input. I am not able to handle that properly. I
have tried using os.popen4 and subprocess module but could not achieve the
desired behavior.

Below mentioned example would show this problem using "cp" command. ("cp"
command is used to show this problem, i am calling some different exe
which may similarly prompt for user response in some scenarios). In this
example there are two files present on disk and when user tries to copy
file1 to file2, an conformer message comes up.

proc = subprocess.Popen("cp -i a.txt b.txt", shell=True,
stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT,)
stdout_val, stderr_val = proc.communicate() print stdout_val b.txt?

proc.communicate("y")

Now in this example if i read only stdout/stderr and prints it, later on
if i try to write "y" or "n" based on user's input, i got an error that
channel is closed. Can some one please help me on achieving this behavior
in python such that i can print stdout first, then should take user input
and write stdin later on.

I think you need something like expect:

http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pexpect

 

[Nobody]

proc = subprocess.Popen("cp -i a.txt b.txt", shell=True,
stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
stderr=subprocess.STDOUT,)
stdout_val, stderr_val = proc.communicate()
print stdout_val b.txt?

proc.communicate("y")

Now in this example if i read only stdout/stderr and prints it, later on
if i try to write "y" or "n" based on user's input, i got an error that
channel is closed. Can some one please help me on achieving this
behavior in python such that i can print stdout first, then should take
user input and write stdin later on.

You can't use .communicate() if you want an interact with the child
process. Any text given as an argument is sent to the child, then the
child's stdin is closed. Then it reads the child's stdout and/or stderr
until the child terminates.

If you want to interact with the child, you need to write to proc.stdin
and read from proc.stdout and/or proc.stderr. And you need to do this
asynchronously, i.e. you either need to use non-blocking I/O or multiple
threads, otherwise you risk deadlock. Look at the source code for the
..communicate() method in subprocess.py for examples (the Unix version uses
non-blocking I/O, the Windows version uses threads).

Even that may not be enough, as the child process may behave differently
if std{in,out,err} are pipes rather than a tty. Typically, stdin and
stdout are line-buffered when associated with a tty but block-buffered
otherwise (e.g. when associated with a pipe).

If pipes don't work, the only solution may be to run the child process on
a pseudo-tty (pty); see the pty module or the os.openpty() function.